Old Mill earns third county wrestling championship in five years, boasts four county champions

In the pantheon of champion-rivals, there’s Cowboys-Steelers, there’s Lakers-Celtics, and more recently, there’s Warriors-Cavaliers. But in Anne Arundel County wrestling, in 2018, there’s Seahawks-Patriots.

Old Mill rode the performances of four county champions to coast to victory Saturday at the Anne Arundel County wrestling championships, its third championship in five years. South River won in 2016 and 2017.

“It feels good,” Patriots coach Jim Grim said of getting back on top. “South River has been a premier program for quite some time now, and it’s good to not let them three-peat. I feel like we’re always in contention and should always win it, in my opinion, so I’m pretty excited.

The Patriots, who clinched the championship before the finals even started, finished the weekend with 267 points. Broadneck pulled up in second place with 223.5 points and South River followed with 192 points.

“You know, just all the hard work, come up to (this point in the season), it’s like, I didn’t do this for nothing,” said Old Mill’s Damion Mansapit, who beat his friend, Broadneck’s Nick Shardt, to secure the 126-pound title.

The evening started off with the 106-pound title match, where Southern’s Bowen Wilson earned a 2-1 decision over South River’s Mason Smith. Next, Smith’s teammate Isaac Barber pinned Southern’s Devin Ball in 5 minutes, 24 seconds to secure the 113-pound title. The first of Old Mill’s champions, Ryheam Tull, then took the 120-pound title with a 3-1 overtime decision over North County’s Seth Davis. Mansapit outlasted Schardt 8-5 in his victory.

In the 132-pound title match, 10th-seeded Caron Tull came less than two minutes away from topping his surprising, underdog weekend with a title. North County’s Rodney Jones was down a couple points early in the third period but was able to capitalize and pin the upstart freshman to secure the title.

“We know what we’ve got with Caron,” Grim said. “He’s an unbelievable athlete. It was exciting, and for him to get to the finals, and almost win, it was exciting.”

In the 138-pound final, Northeast’s Kyle Preston beat Arundel’s Trevor Gagnon by a 2-1 decision. South River’s Trenton Puccinelli took the 145 title after a third-period injury forced his opponent, Broadneck’s Owen Joyce, to forfeit the match.

Patriots senior Robbie Fleming took the 152-pound title, his fourth in four seasons.

“It feels great, I knew I could do it coming in here, so I just put it to work,” Fleming said. “Everything I’ve been doing all season to get here, I’m ready to go to regionals, and I’m ready to go to states.”

Southern’s Josh Merkle followed with an overtime decision over Old Mill’s Boris Beltran to take the 162-pound title. Merkle was one of two champions for the Bulldogs.

“We’re growing as a program,” Merkle said. “As a program, I think we’re going to be good.”

Broadneck’s Zach Doyle followed with a pin of Southern’s Averum White in 3 minutes and 30 seconds to take the 170-pound title.

“I knew I was going to win the whole time,” Doyle said. “I was just doing what I’ve been doing the whole tournament. He caught me, but I just worked hard to get out of it, and I pinned him.”

Old Mill’s Jason Smith took the 182-pound title over Annapolis' Jason Leming. Vinny Facciponti of Broadneck beat North County’s DeShawn Madison with a 9-2 decision. At 220, Noah Genovese gave Broadneck its third champion of the evening on a 4-3 decision over South River’s Alex Peterson.

In the heavyweight matchup, old rivals Ka’ron Lewis of South River and Nasir Bakare of Old Mill hooked up, with Lewis coming out on top with a 2-1 decision.

“Before this, he beat me twice, and I beat him once, so now we’re tied up 2-2,” Lewis said. “It’s good competition.”

Though it’s been six years now since a team other than Old Mill or South River has won the county championship, Broadneck put up a solid showing and kept itself within striking distance heading into the second day of matches.

“It was a great overall effort,” Bruins coach Reid Bloomfield said. “We had guys step up who weren’t in the first, second match, who came up back. I think we overachieved in a lot of areas, there was some areas we need to get better in. Some guys overachieved and some guys underachieved. But overall, I’m proud of the way the team performed.”

The county championships mark the final wrestling tournament before the regional and state tournaments coming up later this month.